IEM Daily Bulletin for Feb 18 2026
daryl herzmann
Iowa Environmental Mesonet Daily Bulletin for 18 February 2026
News
No news is good newsIEM Code Pushes <repo,branch> on Github
| Timestamp | Repository | Message | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 17 1:45 PM | iem,main | 🐛 Correct highcharts datetime usage | Link |
| Feb 17 3:41 PM | pyiem,main | 🔥 Remove previous spc_outlook entries when reprocess | Link |
Daily Feature
Just 1.6" of Snow
Date: 17 Feb 05:30 AM
Votes: Good: 13
Bad: 0 Abstain: 0
Two months ago, the IEM Daily Feature denoted the fast start to the winter season accumulated snowfall for Des Moines. Snowfall totals since have been rather paltry for most of the state since. The featured chart presents the yearly snowfall totals between 1 January and 16 February. The 2026 total of just 1.6 inches is tied for fourth lowest over this period on record. Remarkably, a number of previous years are shown in the top 10 for largest accumulations (2021, 2024, and 2019)! Monday was yet another day of record high temperatures over Iowa and we have a few warm days yet to go before chances of accumulating snow return to the state.
The featured media can be generated on-demand here
.NWS Watch/Warning Summary for 12 AM 17 Feb 2026 - 12 AM 18 Feb 2026 CST
| Summary | By WFO | Watches | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | US | IA | ARX | DVN | DMX | OAX | FSD | US |
| Tornado | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Svr Tstorm | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Flash Flood | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | --- |
ARX = LaCrosse, WI DVN = Davenport, IA DMX = Des Moines, IA OAX = Omaha, NE FSD = Sioux Falls, SD
IEM Cow Report
SVR+TOR Warnings Issued: 4 Verified: 1 [25.0%] Polygon Size Versus County Size [14.9%] Average Perimeter Ratio [1.4%] Percentage of Warned Area Verified (15km) [31.5%] Average Storm Based Warning Size [1769 sq km] Probability of Detection(higher is better) [0.41] False Alarm Ratio (lower is better) [0.75] Critical Success Index (higher is better) [0.18]